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Paradise
Oh how cold the concrete gets
Young niggas on the sidewalks
Throwing dices placing bets
Garbage bags and smoke
Snake-eyes selling coke
Profits are abundant in Paradise
But then
We are all still broke
Mr. Hustle and Mrs. Bustle
Are always on the move
Selling half priced merchandize
I heard they got
Those new expensive cheap shoes
Down the block
Pleasure is having a sale
Two for one the deal they say
On the head of any female
Old man Slick and Princess Trick
Are making a runway of the streets
Looking lavish in mink coats and pearls
As they stroll to there silent beat
Speaking of beats
I hear drums
I think hear drums
Oh they call that nigga Drum Man Dan
But drums they are not
Those are some rusty old garbage cans
If u want to here some soulful sounds
Flip a coin to Jukebox Jack
He can play all that good shit
And man can that nigga play the sax
He use to be in a band I here
Until Mary Jane kicked him out
I heard he tried to get back in
But the taste of old Jane never left his mouth
Poetry, poetry is hot in paradise
The jazz club are packed at Friday nights
Watch , listen, feel, embrace
As the pains of ghetto love
Get expressed in rhythmic delights
There’s this freestyle crew hangs on Rose St.
Spitting rhymes with no beats
With local thugs on lock
Copping rocks holding heat
The Reds and Blues
Are always in debate
Discussing lines and rules
Lights were flashing last night
When Blue was found behind yellow tape
I saw this guy got beat today by the cops
Motherfucking tarts are always on our blocks
Keeping us in
They’re like fucking padlocks
Where were they last night
When shots echoed down my street
Where were they last night
When blood soaked her sheet
Her pain, what an endless pain she knows
I saw the tears in her eyes
I saw the trembling of her toes
But life goes on
We’ve come to know this as true
They call this reality
A “what the fuck can I do” mentality
Yeah so my wife got raped
What the fuck can I do
So my son does drugs
What the fuck can I do
My daughter is a prostitute
What the fuck can I do
I abuse my family
What the fuck can I do
How disturbing is this shit
A whole generation of people
So easily to give up
A race so easy to quit
There’s this black panther member
That lives a few steps from my door
His intellect is so vast
The passion in his eyes leaks from every pore
Yet
He finds it hard to leave home
The passion that was in his heart
Has turned to stone
Give up
Its too fucking easy to give up
Far too easy to quit
Ill give up when I die
Or when my people stop walking in shit
Paradise
This is not the biblical Paradise you know
But beneath this cold concrete
I see a rose that’s beginning to grow
